698's Fisher Price Motor Fix

[Alex698]

For this year's game we (698) used one fisher price motor to run our spinning wheel for our poof-ball launcher. We did have one issue that I would like to announce and tell how we have fixed it.
We quickly found that the life of the motor was around 800 poof-ball shots, then it would have to be replaced, mostly because we were burning up the motor . Recently when we were redesigning the launcher to shoot shirts, I came across one of our past "dead" motors. I found that the reason the motor was failing was due to the fact it was overheating. The reason it was overheating was the little white fan (on the inside) was made of plastic and whenever the motor would heat up too much, the fan would melt off of the tiny axle and become worthless.
While redesigning the robot we added two 12vdc victor fans to the top and bottom housing for the motor mount. The forced airflow has extended the life of the motor greatly! I would recommend this to any FIRST team with similar problems.

[AdamHeard]

Originally Posted by Alex698

While redesigning the robot we added two 12vdc victor fans to the top and bottom housing for the motor mount. The forced airflow has extended the life of the motor greatly! I would recommend this to any FIRST team with similar problems.

We did this last year for the fisherprices on our arm and it worked well.

[sanddrag]

The fisher price motor is so easy to cool it is a wonder why more teams don't do it, yet still complain about them burning up. A simple RC car motor heat sink, some thermal paste, and a zip tie is often all it takes. A little fan isn't a bad idea either. pic

[gburlison]

The 2005 Fisher-Price motors were prone to overheat so one of our students designed this:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/photos/20111

[EricRobodox]

we fixed this problem by taking out the last two gears in the case to ease tension on the motor, it also the right speed we wanted to shoot at, as well as took some heat sinks, and bent them around the motor. Both of these kept the motor cool and running, and im sure we have shot well over 1000 shots with that motor already. Try that, it works for us.

[Al Skierkiewicz]

Did anybody notice that there is some ventilation holes in the end bells of the motors? If you cover these holes, no cooling air goes in for the fan to push out.

[Stephen.Yanczura]

Originally Posted by Al Skierkiewicz

Did anybody notice that there is some ventilation holes in the end bells of the motors? If you cover these holes, no cooling air goes in for the fan to push out.

Yes, that is an oft overlooked aspect of the issue. Good reverse engineering on the fan melting issue and that aluminum cube is sweet!!

[Pat McCarthy]

67 had an issue with the 2005 HOTBOT's Globe motor, that ran our rear turret, overheating. We mounted a small muffin fan to the frame right next to the motor and had no overheating problems after that.

[Andy Brockway]

We have wire tied the small muffin fans directly to the FP motors. Normally we take .060" lexan or aluminum, mount the muffin fan to that and bend to provide a shroud around the motor.

[techtiger1]

Definitely not something new, the problem has been there for a few years now. The FP's are notorious for magic smoke. 217 and 233 use them every year with a lot of success though. 217 uses them in there drivetrain sometimes one per side and adds more power and speed to there transmissions. 233 used them for there shooter wheel this year, two combined and last year used them to extend and retract there arm in a combined gearbox. Again a fan is a fine idea, but make sure your not over working the motor, especially the FP's there not made to take a heavy load. There purpose is to run for long periods of time at a certain fixed rate, remember there used in power wheels cars. Just my two cents on the Fisher price motor topic.

-Good luck,
Drew

[gburlison]

In 2005, we were concerned that we would overwork the FP's, so we a created a shroud consisting of four fans and cube of aluminum. Since we were using the FP gearbox, we added a spacer to the motor mount. This allowed space for air to get to the front of the motor and blow through and cool off the inside of the FP, not just the outside.